Are We Having Fun Yet?

We're just about to call that the Browning Family Singers. I don't know if it was two or three weeks ago we had the Call Family Singers. Of course, I don't want to forget Lisa McKinney, but you never stop being a Browning, I guess. But thank you, that was beautiful. It's one of those cases where you think, boy, I hate to follow that. But that, I could just say, that's a good sermonette, we'll stop there. Well, I thought of writing down one question of what I would start off with today. And I thought I could get up here and say, well, are we having fun yet? You've heard that question a lot of times. Is it fun? I hope so. But then again, I wondered, is that an appropriate question to ask on the Sabbath at services? Should we be having fun? We often tend to think of fun as trivial or fanciful. And when developing righteous character, preparing to be kings of priests in God's kingdom, that's serious business, right? Well, yes, it is. But does that mean we should leave fun behind? Is it as Paul wrote at the end of the love chapter where he said, well, when I was a child, I thought as a child, I acted as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Is fun a childish thing that we should have put away or should? Now, I'll confess, I was doing it some stream of thought as I was writing my notes because I thought, well, okay, this line of reasoning might start sounding silly. But I got into it partly because, as you might have guessed, we're coming into the summer camp season. And I wanted to talk about how at camp we try to establish what we've started calling—not started—many years ago, we started calling the zone. Camp leaders at that time came up with that term pretty much as a shorthand. The zone is meant to be a place where people do things God's way, where people are led by God's Spirit, where there's no harm or fear, you know, we're led by God's Spirit, people don't call each other bad names, everyone can feel welcome, good things happen. We tend to think of the zone as trying to model what it'll be like in God's kingdom as best we can.

Well, we started out with just that word and the concept. And a couple years into it, I'm guessing I wasn't in the administrative team back then, so sometimes I wonder how things got done, but some men put their heads together and they devised seven elements of the zone. Seven things that go into creating the zone at camp. They consist of—and you don't have to note these, a lot of the kids would have heard them—challenge, success, support, inclusiveness, proper relationships, structure, and fun. As I said, I'm not sure exactly who decided how to put these together, but I found them to be very useful over the years. And they're part of the zone for obvious reasons. When we say structure, you think, well, you have to have certain rules. And of course, we all live by God's rules, His commandments. But even at camp, you have a schedule. You have an administrative organization. Positive relationships are a part of the zone. That means friends, mentors, and of course, most of all, hopefully a positive relationship with God. Inclusiveness goes along with those relationships, but it means no one has to feel left out or like they're looked down upon. And support is similar. Now, interestingly, some of the other elements have been very useful to me as I've prepared for when I was teaching activities at camp. They would help me decide what to do and what not to do. I use the example when I first was recruited to teach wilderness skills. I'm not sure if I've told the story to the whole congregation, but I remember the year before I first taught it, Mr. McNeely was leading the camp then. He took me aside and we had this conversation about how he'd been reading and field and stream about certain things every young man ought to be able to do outdoors. I was like, yeah, that's good. That sounds real interesting. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, so why are you telling me about this? And that's what he said. We need to have a class on wilderness skills. And he put his arm around me and said, you need to teach it, which meant that I had to go learn a lot of wilderness skills, being somewhat of a city kid. What I was getting at with this is, I discovered there are a lot of skills that you could use in the wilderness that are useful, maybe important to know. I thought, I could have a class on how to properly load a backpack, and I could teach kids how to do that, and they'd be successful, but it's not much fun.

So I reasoned, well, sometimes building fire, that's fun. At least, I don't know any little boys that don't think building a fire isn't fun. You can build challenges into it and say, okay, now do it without matches, and we'll show you how to do it. So that activity should be fun, has guided a lot of our decisions in the camp program. And it does tend to guide people's decisions in life. Now, some people would say, there's no better guide for life. You know, fun should be the most important factor. I'm not going to say I agree with that, because we've got something else to guide our lives. This is what we use as our main criteria for what we should do in life. So I thought, what does the Bible tell us about fun? You know, is there more than one kind of fun? Is all fun good? You could say, is any kind of fun good?

Well, if we're looking to the Bible for answers, we can ask, what does it say about fun? And here's where I have to confess, I got a little bit of a surprise. If you're like me, and you read mostly the King James or the New King James Version, I looked into it, and it doesn't say anything. I got out my concordance and said, fun is not in the Bible. At least the word was not only in the King James, but not any translation I checked.

I said, well, does that mean fun is unbiblical? Is it bad or sinful? Well, wait a minute. I thought, just be... there are a lot of things the Bible doesn't talk about, or there are a lot of things the Bible does talk about, and they are bad. You know, that's where we get all the thou shalt nots. The Bible lists things and says, don't do that, it's bad. So the absence of any mention doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Along that line, I thought, well, the Bible doesn't say anything about lasagna, and lasagna is obviously very good.

I'm glad some of you at least agree with me on that. Same thing we could say for ice cream.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little obtuse and sounding silly, but...

What should be obvious, though, to us is because the Bible doesn't use the word fun, that doesn't mean the concept is not there. As it turns out, if you look back in history, when the main English translations that we use first were being worked on about 400 years ago, the word fun wasn't in such common usage. So where the idea came up, different words were often used.

Let me mention, I got out my Webster's dictionary to see what it said about fun. It defined fun as, whatever provides amusement, enjoyment, or playfulness.

That seemed to help. And then it listed some synonyms. One was pleasure, and another one that caught my eye was the word merriment, as in, being merry. Well, the Bible does talk about joy. It talks about enjoyment, and it uses the word merry and merriment. Actually, most of the translations that we use, you'll see the term making merry. Making merry, that's M-E-R-R-Y. I'm gonna say if you had a little girl named Mary, that's a different thing. The Bible also in some places mentions the word playing. Play is in the Bible. Now, a lot of those places it refers to playing music, but there are other places where it seems to mean just playing. And just face it, playing, playing is fun. I'm gonna take a break because this incredibly obvious concept really hit me over the head once. Not that long ago, I was outside with Connor, and I tried to take him outside most mornings to play. And this particular incident, we were outside, but as I do probably too often, I was going out with him. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about a sermon. And to be honest, I was thinking about this sermon. And I was trying to think, how do I explain this, and wrapping my mind around it? And I was at that...slow down...at the point where I was going to tell Connor, we got to go inside. Time's up. I've got to get back to my serious work. And then we found a cool distraction. It had rained pretty heavily the night before. And we came by where there's this little stream that comes out of a storm sewer. A drainage pipe brings water from under the highway, and a little creek that runs down to the lake. Well, there's this big puddle, and Connor wanted to throw some pine cones in to see if they would swim. That was his word, not mine. Well, we threw a couple pine cones in, and one of them got caught in the current, and started zooming down, and it hit an obstacle, and it stopped, and then it cleared, and it'd go over a waterfall, and through rapids. And we were running along the side, and it was neat watching this. And Connor got caught up. He would shout for joy when it would clear an obstacle. And for some reason, he started saying, Yay, Larry! Go, Larry! I have no idea when the pine cone became named Larry. But we had so much fun doing it, we went up and got some more pine cones and threw them in, and we made several trips up and back. And while we were doing it, it dawned on me. Frank, this is fun!

You know, it might be hard to define it, or it sounds too academic, but when we were doing it, I said, this is what fun is, and this is good. So you don't have to find some elaborate definitions for fun. And that's when it occurred to me, when we went back to the house, I pulled up one of Connor's Dr. Seuss books off the shelf. It's the old classic, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. And I can quote, I'm going to read two entire pages from the book, pages 50 and 51. I meant to bring it with me so I could show you the pictures, but these pages say, Did you ever fly a kite in bed? Did you ever walk with ten cats on your head?

Did you ever milk this kind of cow? Well, we can do it. We know how. If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.

Part of my research where I was being more serious before I discovered what fun was, I actually looked for quotes, you know, which is easy to do on the internet. You can just go to Google and type in quotes. I was looking for quotes about fun, and I found a lot of them that were useless, but they took that part of Dr. Seuss and they attributed him just the simple quote, Fun is good. I like that. Now, as I said before, though, I suspect that far too many people make fun their entire guide for living. Too many people don't realize that perhaps not all fun is good.

What? Not all fun is good? No, really, I don't think so. And this is where I am going to get into the Bible here fairly soon, and we'll get into more of what some people might expect in a sermon where you're talking about what the Bible says about fun. But before I turn to some scriptures, I will sum up, I think, a couple of lessons that we'll find there, and I'll put them first, and we'll see how I think the Bible backs this up. Because these are lessons that I learned as a kid. I remember adults telling me, okay, one of them is, fun is only good if it still seems fun the next day. Any of you heard that? Or down the line? To clarify, that means some things seem fun, but they bring bad results. Now, that's not to say some things aren't as much fun the next day. And to be honest, the next day, Connor and I went back to throw more pine cones in the water, but the water level had gone down because it hadn't just rained, and they kept getting caught up and wasn't as much fun. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about things where it seems fun, but somebody gets hurt, or it brings some really bad results. You know, things that seem fun, but ends up with someone in the hospital or in jail, you know, that's not good fun.

The second lesson that we can, I think we'll see, is that fun is only good fun if everyone involved agrees that it's fun. I thought of that because there's a common phrase, making fun of, making fun of a person. Well, that might seem good to the bullies who are engaging in it, but if you're the one that's being picked on or being criticized, well, that's not much fun. We can find a couple prominent examples of play and things that might have seemed fun at the time in the Bible, but weren't necessarily. I want to start in Exodus chapter 32.

This is a pretty well-known story, but I think we'll see it.

It demonstrates it pretty well. Exodus 32 will begin in the first verse.

Now, this is a case where we find the children of Israel camped at the base of Mount Sinai. This is not long after they've heard God Himself descend on the mountain and speak the Ten Commandments, but a short time after that, Moses went up the mountain to get more detailed instruction, and that's where we'll begin reading. In verse 1, Aaron said, So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast of the Eternal. Then they rose up early the next day, offered bird offerings, brought peace offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

That's a long way to get to play, but without understanding, people rose up to play might sound okay. But this kind of playing doesn't seem like it was good. I've heard different theories about what exactly it means, and we could range all the way from while they were playing some music. I've heard some people even mention that it might involve some type of an orgy. But either way, we know God was not pleased. We'll move ahead in the story to see that. But I will stop and say, though, I imagine the people thought it was a lot of fun at the time. And let's go to verse 17, because at this point, God always sees what's going on, and He warned Moses, you need to go take care of this. So Moses is on his way down the mountain, and he meets his servant Joshua. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there's a noise of war in the camp. Moses said, no, it's not the noise of the shout of victory or the noise of the cry of defeat. It's the sound of singing I hear.

So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he, that is Moses, saw the calf and the dancing. Now Moses's anger became hot. He cast the tablets out of his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf which they'd made, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel to drink it. I think they weren't having so much fun at that point. Yeah, they were probably thinking, oh, it seemed fun at the time, not so good now. And it would get worse if you move ahead to verse 27. He said to them, Moses talking to some of the people, thus says the Lord God of Israel, let every man put his sword on his side, go in and out from the entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and about 3,000 men of the people fell that day. There was a punishment for the wrong kind of fun. They were engaged in what seemed fun, and it just, I mean, I haven't been involved in this type of thing, but I would imagine some of the rituals and rites that were involved in idolatry might have seemed exhilarating and really tantalizing, perhaps intoxicating to the people. But they lead to suffering. They lead to death in the long run. Just because something seems fun temporarily, we have to think what happens next. Let's look at another example, where the fun of making Mary didn't lead to continued fun the following days. This is in the story, well, we'll turn to Judges chapter 9. This is partway through the story of Gideon's son, Abimelech. Gideon's story is one of my favorites in the Bible, and it's followed by a very odd episode. Well, the whole thing's a little elaborate, but of course we know Gideon had several wives and a whole lot of kids, and one of them was by a concubine, Abimelech, had the others killed and became a ruler over a certain city in Israel. And things seemed good at time, but while he was away, there was a little bit of a rebellion. We'll pick up reading in Judges 9 and verse 27. Judges 9, 27.

Oh, sorry. I find that I was looking at Joshua 9.

Here we go. They went out into the fields and gathered grapes from their vineyards, trod them, and made Mary. Again, making Mary. They're having fun. They went to the house of their God and ate and drank and cursed Abimelech. By the way, I'm always guessing at the first few times I read this, I thought, they trod the grapes and now they're drinking wine. I'm guessing it was wine they'd made earlier. So they put that wine, the grape juice to ferment, but they had the wine they'd done last year. But they were eating and drinking and having a good old time. And Gail, the son of Ebed, said, who's Abimelech? And who is Shechem that we should serve him? Isn't he the son of Jerubil and is not Zebul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem, but why should we serve him? So he said, you guys go serve him. We don't want to follow this guy. Oh, if only this people were under my authority, I'd remove Abimelech. And he said to Abimelech, who wasn't there. He's far away. He said, you know, bring your army and come on out.

Well, I'm going to skip ahead in the story, but this fellow who was having fun at the time, bragging and talking about what he would do, I guess, wasn't thinking that word would get to Abimelech, and it did. So Abimelech brings an army to punish these rebels. Down in verse 43, So he that is Abimelech took his people, divided them into three companies, and lay in wait in the field. And he looked, and there were the people coming out of the city, and he rose against them and attacked them. Abimelech and the company that was with him rushed forward and stood at the entrance of the gate of the city. The other two companies rushed upon all who were in the fields and killed them. So Abimelech fought against the city all that day, took the city and killed the people who were in it, demolished the city, and sowed it with salt. They spread salt to make sure that you couldn't grow crops there again. That's the way of saying this land should always be desolate. And I had a note here to remind myself, by the way, I'm not holding up Abimelech as a hero. He's pretty much a villain in my book, but I wanted to point this out that these men before, they were having, as I said, a lot of fun. They were making their wine, drinking, eating, and saying, oh, this is great! Who is that Abimelech? We don't need to serve him. It wasn't so much fun later on. I have a feeling that at this point several of them looked back with a little regret about what they said and did that day. And I will note, it does turn out there are quite a number of references in scripture to making Mary that involve drinking alcohol. But I want to point out, usually when it, well, always when it leads to bad things, it's speaking of drinking in excess. And thus, the fun that those had, you know, led to bad results.

That doesn't mean that no use of alcohol or eating and having fun, you know, that you should never do any of that. Moderation is what matters. I want to look at one more case where drinking to excess comes into play. We'll see this. We're going to go to 1 Samuel chapter 25. This is the case with Nabal, Abigail's first husband. Now, just last week, I read about part of the story where Nabal had insulted David and his men. David was going to kill him, but because of Abigail's apology and heading him off, he didn't. Abigail saved her husband's wife, but then he would suffer for his foolishness in other ways. And that's where I want to pick up in 1 Samuel 25 and verse 36. This is when Abigail comes back from meeting David.

So Abigail went to Nabal. There he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him. Boy, was he having fun! In this case, partly because he was very drunk. So getting drunk seems fun at the time. So she told him nothing little or much until morning. So it was in the morning when the wine had gone from Nabal. His wife told him these things, all of the stuff that we read about and that we discussed last week. And his heart died within him. He became like a stone. And it happened after about 10 days that the eternal struck Nabal and he died. Now I thought I wanted to clarify, because you could read stories like this and conclude that any drinking, playing, or having fun is bad. But we do want to have a more balanced approach. We want to see where it's going to an extreme that can be very bad. You know, and many of us have seen that. Probably many of you like me might have been, well, I say some of you are younger, but I remember younger being at parties and seeing especially young men drinking enough to where they seemed like they were having fun, drinking enough to be stupid, having a blast. But then you see them the next day and they don't look like they're having fun. They look like they've been through the garbage disposal. They're not enjoying that. And that's one of the best case scenarios. I've heard stories. I haven't been part of this, but I've heard of guys who are having a blast, drinking to excess, and then, you know, they passed out and woke up in a hospital or in a jail cell. That's not fun the next day. Now, there it's not necessarily alcohol or making Mary that's bad and harmful. It's when things are misused, when things go to an extreme that they shouldn't, that what seems fun at the time might not be fun later on. I said earlier, you know, as I said, I couldn't find fun and any translations of the Bible, but that idea is there. And based on that, I looked at some paraphrases. There are paraphrases of the Bible that are not word-for-word translations, but they try to translate the concepts, you know, into modern language. Now, some of them aren't real good or there's some passages of Scripture that they can mess up, but they're good for some places. I'm saying that to lead into saying, I checked the Living Bible. That's a paraphrase, and it does use the word fun in several places. One such Scripture has a very strong contrast, and I want to use this to turn away from, like I said, bad fun to what the Bible talks about, about fun that we could see is good. The Living Bible renders Proverbs 10 verse 23, and you can look at 1023 if you want. It'll say something a little different in the King James, but the Living Bible paraphrase says, A fool's fun is being bad. A wise man's fun is being wise. A fool's fun is bad, but a wise man's fun is being wise. Or in other words, being smart. A wise man can have fun in a good way.

Being bad might seem fun to an evil or foolish person, but if we're wise and if we're led by God's spirit, we can have fun in good ways. Fun that doesn't hurt anybody, that doesn't lead to misery or suffering the next day. I like being out here is where I can finally use my cup during services.

One of the first examples in the Bible that I thought of where someone was having fun in a good way is one that describes it as play. It's not children playing either. It's a grown man and the one who's called the man after God's heart. We'll see it in 2 Samuel 6.

This is another familiar story. I know I've referred to it many times in sermons, so hope you don't mind hearing it again. But in 2 Samuel 6, we see David in the prime of his life. He's done running and hiding from Saul. He's ruling over all of the kingdom of Israel, and he's determined to lead them in proper worship of God. To do this better, he wanted to move the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem, and he planned he wanted to build a great temple for the name of God and to house the ark. Now we know eventually God would tell him, no, your son Solomon needs to build the temple. But on this occasion when David was bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, well let me just read. In 2 Samuel 6 and verse 12, it was told, King David, the eternal was blessed the house of Obed-edim and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edim to the city of David with gladness. Where it says city of David, it's referring to the part of Jerusalem that he was building up, not Bethlehem, which is sometimes also called the city of David. This is referring to Jerusalem. And so it was when those bearing the ark of the eternal had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. And then David danced before the eternal with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the eternal, was shouting with the sound of a trumpet. Now as the ark of the eternal came into the city of David, Michael saw his daughter look through a window, and she saw King David leaping and whirling before the eternal. And she despised him in her heart. That's interesting. She saw him, we could say, having fun. She didn't think much of it. Now I do want to make a point. This was not a worship service. They did offer sacrifice. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing to move the ark of the covenant. There's no command in the Bible that says, this is how you worship God. You leap and whirl and dance. So I'm not suggesting we change to that kind of church service, because I believe you can find some of those probably in the area. But I think, you know, David was jumping for joy, so to speak. He was so happy. There are different reasons people do dance. Some people dance because it's good exercise. I haven't watched it in a while. I used to sometimes watch that show Dancing with the Stars. And it was amazing if you watched the whole run of the show several weeks, how the stars get thinner and thinner as the time goes by, because it is good exercise. I've known a lot of young men who dance for one reason only, and that's because girls like to dance. But, you know, most people dance because it's fun. You know, God built rhythm into us, and when we hear music playing, we move to the music, and it feels good. We enjoy it. It's fun. Well, we read Michael thought David was acting in an undignified way. He answered her directly in verse 21. David said to Michael, It was before the Eternal who chose me instead of your father in all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Eternal, over Israel. Therefore, I will play before the Eternal. Now, I'm reading, the New King James adds the word music in italics. I'm not sure. I don't think the word requires music. I think the translators were thinking of the fact that David was a musician. Perhaps he did play music that day. But I can't imagine while he was leaping and whirling, he was plucking his harp.

Although, I've seen some concerts where guys have had guitars and doing a little bit of leaping and whirling. But I don't think it's wrong to say that he was playing. David was happy and joyful and playing before God. He was probably having as much fun as if he'd thrown a pine crone into the creek and was watching it go over the rapids. Maybe more fun. I won't, I forgot I wrote that in here. Sorry, I'm looking at my notes. I don't do that kind of thing very often. I have had a tradition. Once a year at summer camp, we usually have a dance. I started this when I was a younger man, where I would say, okay, I'm going to get out and dance for all I'm worth at the end of camp. I still try to do it. It's funny, my leaping and whirling has gotten to be much less than it was 20 some years ago. But I still try to put on my party shirt and do a little bit.

And I suppose there are probably a lot of people in the church that wouldn't think that was appropriate, you know, not very dignified. But I think about David. And he said that, you know, I'm dancing before the eternal and before his people. I want to come back to the idea of playing for fun a little bit later. But first, let's consider some other examples of making Mary with food and drink, which the Scriptures present as being good and blessed by God.

One of those was during the reign of Solomon. It was also a special event and similar to the one we were just reading of. Solomon did build the temple that David had wanted to, and it was very elaborate. It was beautiful. And so they decided to hold the dedication during the Feast of Tabernacles. For this account, if you'll turn with me to 2 Chronicles, we'll read 2 Chronicles, chapter 7, beginning in verse 8.

2 Chronicles 7, beginning in verse 8.

Wait a minute.

Oh, there we go.

At that time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him... This is, by the way, referring to the Feast of Tabernacles. All the Israel with him, a very great assembly from the entrance of Hamas to the Brook of Egypt. And on the eighth day, they held a sacred assembly. Of course, that's what happens. The Feast of Tabernacles is seven days. Then there's a separate feast referred to as the eighth day. And they observed the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days. And on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents. Joyful, glad of heart for the good that the eternal had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people. In the original King James, where it says, glad of heart, that version said, merry of heart. And that's where it reminded me. Merriment is a symbol or a synonym of fun.

You know, they had great a great deal of fun at this special occasion. I thought, of course they did. Keeping the feast is fun. The Feast of Tabernacles is one time when God says, I want you to save up this money. Go to the place I tell you. Spend it on what you want and make merry. Enjoy yourself. Isn't keeping the feast fun? God made it that way. And now, this was a time when it was especially happiness and joy. Solomon wrote some specific instructions on how to make merry. If you want to turn it over to Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 7. In Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 7, he says, Go eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. God has already accepted your works. Here again, food and drink in the right proportion and moderation is a wonderful thing. There are plenty, as I said, plenty of places in the Bible that warn against drunkenness and gluttony. But when food and drink are consumed in moderation in the right proportion, it's a good thing. It's fun. Fun that doesn't have bad results. And it's fun for everyone involved.

If you'll turn back towards the beginning, a few pages to Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15 and verse 15.

Proverbs 15 and verse 15. As I said, I couldn't find the word fun, but Mary shows up a good many times in the Bible. Proverbs 15 and 15 says, All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast. That's not saying it's always a holy day, but it's like having that good time. If you're able to have fun and find the fun in the situation you're in, it's like being at the feast. It's continually enjoying yourself. Turn ahead a page or two to Proverbs 17 and verse 22. Proverbs 17 and 22 says, A merry heart does good like medicine. It's a broken spirit that dries the bones. Being disappointed and down all the time, that's bad for your health. But being happy, having a little fun, can actually affect your health in a good way. It's funny, as I was writing this, I thought, I wonder if Joanne Huffman were here, I'd probably get a smile from her. I know if you're watching on the webcam, maybe Joanne will be one of the ones that tells me how we come through. You know, I've heard stories of people who are very sick making a point of watching a lot of funny movies and laughing, and they actually had their health improve. Now, I'm not sure if there have been clinical studies about that, but I thought, you know, I'd rather watch the Three Stooges than get chemotherapy any day.

Now, I don't know that doctors are going to introduce that as a specific course of treatment, but it's worth remembering, you know, making merry is good for your health. It makes you feel better.

If you will, think back again to those seven elements of the zone. Fun is an important one.

But I thought, you know, what seems like fun can vary a lot. What's fun for one person might not be so much fun for someone else. And sometimes things are fun for a while and, you know, wears off.

So, as I was thinking about what is fun, that's not fun, but I thought, you know, those other six elements of the zone might help to analyze some of that. So, I analyzed it in relation to something that I think of as fun. I still think it's fun to play basketball. I don't get to play very often, which is just as well because I'm not good at it, but that's how I've always known I did it for fun because there wasn't any other good reason. And I thought, you know, the concepts of challenge and success are an important part of something being fun. Because just think, if I got a hula hoop and sat it at waist level and said, okay, your goal is to throw the ball through that hoop, well, I might do it a couple times and say, well, not much of a challenge. It's easy to have success. Now, you shrink the hoop down and put it 10 feet in the air, you know, okay, when you can get the ball through that hoop, you've met the challenge, it's kind of fun. Now, if I'd made it an impossible challenge, if I made it 20 feet high and a little smaller, I could never succeed, well, that wouldn't be much fun. Well, that seems pretty obvious. What about some of those other elements?

The concepts of inclusiveness and positive relationships, those are what makes it possible for not to just have a guy with a ball throwing it through a hoop, but you get some guys together, you form teams, and you play a game. Playing the game of ball is more fun.

You know, at camp, we refer to structure, you know, the structure element of the zone as, you know, well, we have to have rules, and we have to have organization and a schedule. But those are important to having fun if you're playing a game. You know, if the guys get together with the basketball, we have to agree, okay, you don't travel, you don't double dribble.

Often when I've done pickup games, we don't have a clock, but if you're like me and you like to watch the NCAA tournament in March, those buzzer beater shots are one of the most fun things in the game. You can only have a buzzer beater if there's a clock and a buzzer.

What if I took some of these principles and apply it to something that almost no one thinks of as fun? Like running for 26 miles. Now, I found it fun when I had the time to properly train and prepare for a marathon. I thought it was fun, believe it or not. But it was a lot more fun to be in an organized race. If I said, okay, I'm going to step out my door and go run four and a half hours, that's not a whole lot of fun. But when I registered for instance the flying pig, as they call it in Cincinnati, and you're there, you know, and it's on a specific course that everybody's running and it's timed and monitored, there's something fun about that. Maybe partly because of the inclusiveness. Thousands of other insane people are out there doing the same thing. And the challenge is huge. But when you have the success of reaching the finish line, you know, it's a feeling it's hard to describe because usually you're feeling at the same time that you've got utter exhaustion and you're hurt and all that. But boy, you feel good.

And then there's the support. As I said, there's thousands of people lining the streets. People handing you slices of orange and giving you cups of water as you're running along. And I said, for some reason, you're having fun doing something that most people wouldn't think of as fun.

I know the last couple times I ran the race, just for fun, I wore one of my Hawaiian shirts, which is not what you think of for running a marathon. So it made me stand out. But you'd be surprised how many people say, oh, I like your shirt. There's one case I came around a corner is going down the street and there was a fellow who got his electric guitar and amplifier down. He was just playing songs to encourage people. And as soon as he saw me, he stopped the song he was playing and started playing a Jimmy Buffett song. I said, this is for the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. You know what? I felt good. I said, we're having fun now. I think I was only about 12 miles in, so it was a lot more fun at that point anyways. Aside from things like that, you know, we can all relate to God's festivals and what they mean in God's plan. I believe, and I think we can see in Scripture, that having fun, making Mary is part of God's plan for well into the future. He describes it in prophecies of the Millennium. If you'll turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 30 and verse 18, let's look at a few Scriptures in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 30 and verse 18.

Thus says the Eternal, Behold, I'll bring back the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places. The city shall be built on its own mound, and the palace shall remain according to its own plan. Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving, the voice of those who make Mary.

So, making Mary, as I said, is a synonym for fun. It just occurred to me also, the voice of thanksgiving. How many people think Thanksgiving Day is fun? It is. It says, I'll multiply them, they'll not diminish. I'll also glorify them, and they shall not be small.

If we'll turn over to chapter 31 and verse 4. Chapter 31 and verse 4. Again, I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel. You shall again be adorned with tambourines, and shall go forth in dances of those who rejoice. Now, it reminds me of David, dancing as they move the Ark of the Covenant. God seems to say, yeah, dancing and rejoicing, that's a good thing, and it's going to be in the millennium. It's going to be part of his kingdom. Look in verse 13. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together. I'll turn their mourning to joy. I'll comfort them and make them rejoice rather than sorrow.

As I said, there could even be some leaping and whirling going on, and there will absolutely be playing. If you'll look at Zechariah chapter 8, I know you'll all recognize the scripture. We often read it at some time during the Feast of Tabernacles. Zechariah 8, beginning in verse 3. Zechariah 8, 3, Thus says the Eternal, I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the Holy Mountain. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in his hands because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets.

That's a neat thing. The kids are going to exist in the millennium, and they'll be having fun playing in the streets. That's not the kind of playing in the streets where we say, don't go in the street, a car might hit you. I'm guessing pedestrian streets.

Now, when we get older, we don't play that much in the same way, but just think, how many of you find it fun to watch the little kids play? I get to do that all the time. Sometimes just watching Connor run around and do stuff. The other day, he was bent over with two cars in his hands and running them up and down the hallway. He was having fun, and it's kind of fun to see.

I remember reading lots of books about child rearing when Connor was little, and they talk about how important it is for babies and small children to play because they learn that way.

And I thought, that's interesting. They don't play because they're going to learn. They don't say, well, I need to learn motor skills, so I better go play. Oh, they play because it's fun.

It's interesting. We disguise learning many times in games. We'll create a game for learning phonics or something like that, or games to help us learn stuff, because playing comes naturally, and it's fun. We want to do that. We never disguise play with learning. Like, you know, I really want to learn something, and I might get to play. You know, play is slipped in. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that properly. Well, I'll just leave it. But you see, we're working with the children's natural tendency to play and have fun. Why do we understand that kids will want to play and have fun? They're like us. We were kids once. We like to play. Sometimes we still do. We join in their play, and we teach them new ways. I still remember going out with Connor and showing him that if you kick a ball and then run after it and kick it again, it's fun. And then he tried it, and it was fun. Now, I kind of, I guess that he would like it because I like that. And when I started throwing him a ball and he would throw it back, you know, we're still working on the catching in between part. But, you know, tossing a ball back and forth, it's a lot of fun.

You know, I expected that Connor would enjoy those things even though he'd never done them before, because, you know, I knew what is fun to me. The reason I'm telling you that, I thought, isn't it logical for us to conclude that our Father, our Heavenly Father, is the same?

He made us in His image and likeness. So why do we have the capacity for fun? I suspect it wasn't just some bizarre experiment with him thinking, let me build this into them and see if it works. No, he made it so that we like to laugh and play and have fun, because he probably likes to laugh and play and have fun. We're made in His image and likeness. It's not a human weakness or a bad thing that we might want to play and have fun. I'm looking back to my talking about basketball, and I've wondered about this since I was a kid. Do you think once more spirit beings are born into his family, God will want to play basketball with us?

Now, I'm not sure how it would work as all-powerful spirit beings, but, you know, after he was resurrected, Christ manifested Himself in the flesh. Remember, He came flesh and blood and told the apostles, oh, feel my wounds, you know, and give me some food to eat. So maybe as spirit beings, we can become physical and go down to the playground and play a game of ball.

I mean, maybe... well, no. I'd say maybe that's why He created us. I'm sure there are better reasons, but face it. Until you have 10 guys, you can't have a really good game of basketball. So, there's one reason among many better reasons for God to create a family.

I better watch out. I'm not trying to speak heresy here.

But I want to look... one last place is one of Jesus' parables to address the idea of making Mary. It's one you might not expect. It's the parable of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15. And I'm going to summarize most of the story because I particularly want to get to the last part and see a lesson that the father in the story tells the older brother. So I'll summarize, of course, you remember that the parable of the prodigal son is there was a wealthy landowner. He had two sons, and the younger son said, Dad, give me my inheritance. You know, he wanted everything now. I don't want to wait for you to get old and die.

Give me my stuff now. And so the father divided everything between his two sons. The younger takes all that he has and goes off to a far country and wastes it with riotous living. He has a lot of fun, but it's not fun that's good the next day because soon he spent everything and a famine comes and he's on hard times.

And finally, it says when he comes to himself, he says, Hey, my father has servants that are better off than me. I'm going to go home and ask him if he'll hire me as one of his servants. At least I'll have some food to eat. And he comes back and, of course, the father sees him a long ways off and he's so happy and he runs out to meet him.

And he tells everybody, well, let's pick up where he tells the servants how to celebrate Luke 15 and verse 22. The father sent to the servants that bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

Bring the fatted calf here and kill it. Let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to be merry. Now we sometimes read this parable and stop there because a very important lesson has already been demonstrated. You know, it shows the importance of repentance and God's forgiveness. That's an overriding lesson there, but there are a couple of other lessons. If we continue reading, we find the other brother comes home and discovers this party going on and he gets angry. He doesn't want to participate. Let's begin reading in verse 28. This is the older brother.

It says, he was very angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So and the son said to his father, lo, these many years I've been both serving you. I've never transgressed your commandment at any time and yet you never gave me even a young goat that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this, the son of yours has come, who devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.

So he's saying, look, I never did all this. I never got to have fun. But this guy who came and did all these wrong things, come now you're having this big party for him. Well, let's read what the father says. In verse 31, he, that is the father, said, son, you're always with me.

All that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and he's found. As I said, the most important lesson from this parable is repentance and forgiveness.

But with that in mind, of course, we can look at some of the other stories. Remember, neither the father or the other brother condone what the younger brother did. They never say, oh, it's fine that he went and did all that. But they're saying we were willing to forgive once he's repented. But the older brother, note, he not only did not do the bad things, you get the feeling that the older brother never relaxed and had fun. He complained, dad, you never gave me a young goat so I could make merry and have fun with my friends.

His father probably was kind of, you know, stunned. He's like, what do you mean? I never did it for you. He had to remind us that once we divided the inheritance, all that I have belonged to you.

You have all you need to have fun. You know, I wonder in reading this, did the older brother think he needed to wait for dad to tell him it's okay to have fun now? You know, some people naturally have that type of personality and I can understand it because I tend to verge that way sometimes. It's like, can I have fun yet?

No, it's not okay yet. You know, sometimes you need someone's go ahead and have fun. Relax. This older brother was like that. But he didn't need that idea. He had somewhat a partly wrong idea of what it meant to be a good son. Obeying his father and not doing bad things was part of being a good son, but it wouldn't have made him bad if he had some fun without waiting for his dad to tell him when to do it.

You know, the father hadn't planned parties for him because he already had all that he needed. You know, he didn't need dad to give him a young goat to plan a party. The young goats all belonged to him. So that's one of the things I wanted to add.

As I said, is it wrong for us to have fun? No. The Bible shows that, as Dr. Seuss said, fun is good, not necessarily the 10 cats on your head or flying a kite in bed. Although I'm tempted. Well, I don't know. I wouldn't try putting one cat in your head isn't much fun.

I could see flying a kite from bed. But anyways, I want to make the point we can make merry with our friends. That's part of why we're here today. When this is done, which is going to be fairly soon, we can stop and enjoy some food and drink and spending time together. And we're here partly because it's fun.

If the father in this parable represents God the father, we could see him as saying to us, it's right to we should make merry and be glad. Now, he might add some more to it if the conversation went on.

He might say, now, keep in mind there are good ways to have fun or make merry, and there are bad ways. For something to be fun in a good way, it shouldn't hurt other people. It shouldn't have bad results tomorrow or later than that. But as we've seen, God, good fun, honors God. It pleases him. It might include food or drink in proper moderation. It could come with playing, singing, and dancing.

And if my theory, my analyzing it, is right, a lot of things become more fun if we have those other elements of the zone. And I think we have a lot of the elements for having fun here today. So, again, if I ask a question, are we having fun? I hope the answer will be, yes! Yes, we are!